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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22481674">The Town That Dreaded Sundown</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedservice/pseuds/twistedservice'>twistedservice</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Fabled [8]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, As you do, Badly Laid Plans, End of the World, F/F, F/M, Minor Character Death, Multi, Mythical Beings &amp; Creatures, Supernatural Elements</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 13:07:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>15,681</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22481674</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedservice/pseuds/twistedservice</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When it comes down to the end of the world, you can learn a lot about yourself.</p><p>If you survive, that is.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Fabled [8]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1072044</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Town That Dreaded Sundown</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <span>“The world is a goddamned evil place, the strong prey on the weak, the rich on the poor; I’ve given up hope that there is a God that will save us all. How am I supposed to believe that there’s a heaven and a hell when all I see now is hell?”<br/></span>
  </em>
  <span>—Doomsday Diaries III, Aaron B. Powell</span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>It’s raining again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Celia has discovered that she doesn’t mind the rain the way some people do. The way humans act you’d think it was an awful creation by some foolish, long-dead man that no one wanted or needed, made on a whim, a desire.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They way they acted, it was as if the rain was the worst thing to ever fall from the sky.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was the little things that made her laugh these days, mostly because the larger things were harder to come by. When people were dropping like flies or at least coming close to it, laughing was dangerous. If something happened while it was going on, you’d feel worse for it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Smiling was easy, though. She was stretched out on the bench outside, tucked underneath the safety of the porch’s overhang. Rory and Kelsea could get soaking wet if they wanted too - that was their prerogative and would hopefully remain so.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now that Celia looks, though, Kelsea doesn’t appear to be doing much else besides frolicking about. She never in her right mind thought she could apply that word to anyone in her life no matter how many years she lived, but Kelsea’s doing it. Celia thought she was out here with Rory, as they do, to practice her own nonsense. It doesn’t even look like she’s watching Rory, let alone practicing herself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s doing good, though. Better than she would have ever expected. It’s only been a few short days since they came back to the utter shit-show that was the house and the surrounding area. Now don’t get her wrong, it still looks like a shit-show with the trees torn up out of the ground and the mud spread about, but at least Rory’s got it down.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anybody else, she thinks, would look like a drowned rat standing out there, but not him. Not even Kelsea spinning about can really distract her from it. He looks, genuinely speaking, good. She’s seen him crying and bleeding and just generally awful so many times now that it’s a beautiful sight.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn’t know where this came from; they likely never will. A concrete answer might just not exist.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For once, Celia can handle not having an answer because he seems happy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She likes watching it, too, but it ends soon enough. Kelsea comes sprinting back in when the rain gets harder and tracks water all through the front hall in front of Celia’s watching eyes. There’s no crying coming from the house, surprisingly. Those kids, for whatever reason, cry very little, something she’s sure they’re all thankful for. Still, being out here was an escape from the whirlwind of the past few days and getting used to the changes in their daily routines.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s slowly coming to an end, though. She waits and sits, patiently, until Rory is just about soaked through, and only then does he turn around and head back for the house. He could stop it directly over his head without a second thought, but he doesn’t.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Calling it quits for the day?” she asks upon his approach. He shakes out his jacket, looking only somewhat like a dog. She considers blocking him out from the shelter under the porch, and then lets him in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s cold,” he replies, which isn’t really the truth. He’s not ever cold. If the temperature of the ocean doesn’t bug him the rain will have little to no effect at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Celia could call him out on that, but she doesn’t. “You’re going to die of a cold, you know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Unless something else gets me first,” he points out, almost casually. He hangs his jacket on the back of the door that Kelsea so graciously left open and steps inside, looking her over.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She stares back. “Don’t.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m just saying.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And I’m saying, </span>
  <em>
    <span>don’t</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” she insists. “No one’s going to die.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You just said I was.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“In six hundred years, give or take, because you keep standing out in the damn rain when you know you shouldn’t. And it </span>
  <em>
    <span>has </span>
  </em>
  <span>been raining a lot more than usual.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s not me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sure it’s not.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s not,” Rory insists. “Swear.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Celia has to believe him. Celia </span>
  <em>
    <span>always </span>
  </em>
  <span>believes him. Last time she checked, anyway, him being able to control the water in the streams and on the ground, making arcs of it in the air, was a lot different than making it fall from the clouds in the first place.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She thinks, anyway. She hopes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After she got through chewing him out, it was almost like everything could go back to normal. Their normal was now her following him outside and watching him discover new things every day while she sat here useless as ever, her only talent being keeping him safe. Often times she couldn’t even do that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In the grand scheme of things, she’d like to pretend that she could. When something happens, if it’s soon, she will. There’s no alternative.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m gonna go take a nap, or something,” he interrupts. “Lie down.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tired?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He nods. She is too, now that she thinks about it. It’s just shy of noon, now, but it seems like everyone has been tired these past few days. There’s been a slouch to everyone’s moments as if something has been draining them, like the babies have been keeping all nine of them up even though it’s not humanly possible.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s just too much going on. She feels weaker than ever, unaware of what’s going to happen. Even Bagel seems to be feeling it, tucked under the coffee table in the living room, unmoving. For a dog he seems very perceptive to all of their moods.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mind if I come with?” she asks. If something is about to happen, she might as well get some rest while she still can. She’s not Kelsea. She can’t just go twirling about in the light, April rain even despite the exhaustion.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rory holds out a hand without looking, a clear yet silent offer, and she takes it, allowing him time to kick off his shoes before she drags him upstairs. There’s not a single sign of anyone else, as if they’ve all returned to the same mindset and decided to lie down. Even Kelsea is gone already, and the room to her door is closed and shut.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Everything is quiet. For now, it’s good.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A nap seems in due order, if it is.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nadir is particularly glad that everyone else is sleeping when she’s not.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Glad being the sarcastic term there, of course.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Blair is the only one either not sleeping or just relaxing somewhere where she can’t see, which is to be expected. What’s not to be expected is that sometime in the last ten minutes, which is the last time she saw him, one of the babies has up and disappeared. Considering they’re just shy of five days old, that’s probably not very good.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She gets up, following the rustling to the kitchen, which is where Blair vanished to. Only God knows what he’s doing - to this day she doesn’t trust him in the kitchen, and for good reason.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Upon first glance she can’t even pinpoint exactly what it is he’s doing, but he’s got Matteo in the crook of one arm, wide awake for some of the few minutes they get either of them like that a day. That’s what matters most of all. From this angle she can see Ezra still asleep on the couch in that weird contraption of a pillow that Dimara bought.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At least he can’t go anywhere.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Blair doesn’t even glance up. “You good?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“As always,” she says easily, a practiced response. She’s still exhausted, but there’s good reason for that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Whatever he’s doing looks as if it’s coming to a close, but she lingers regardless. Matteo is the bigger of the two, not by much, but enough to make a difference. He looks less squashable tucked in Blair’s arm, like he’s perfectly content where he is, enough to be awake for just a little while.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Question,” Blair interrupts. “Did you even knew I took him when I left?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She stares. Blair stares back. Matteo flops his unsteady little neck about until Blair makes him stop and doesn’t look at either of them. Apparently babies don’t see much anyway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Who would’ve known?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Listen,” she says slowly, and Blair smiles. “I am </span>
  <em>
    <span>tired, </span>
  </em>
  <span>thank you very much, and hungry for that matter because I’m hungry all the time—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know, I know,” he says, swallowing a laugh. “Go lay down, then. I’m almost done here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So he’s making food for her, predictably, because he doesn’t need to eat it and as previously mentioned all she does now is eat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t trust you in here,” she points out. She never has. Not in hundreds of years has Blair being in the kitchen ever been a practical or reliable thing. To be honest, she’s surprised he even knows how to turn the stove on and operate it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If it turns out to be shit, I’ll give him back to you and go get a pizza, or something.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can’t make a poor old pizza guy come here, now can we,” she says flatly. “Also don’t teach him to swear at not even a week old.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She hears a suspicious mutter that sounds a lot like </span>
  <em>
    <span>I’ll do what I want</span>
  </em>
  <span>, which he absolutely will regardless of what she says, wants, or feels. As long as everyone’s okay he doesn’t seem to care much about anything else.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Still, she returns to the living room and her indented spot in the couch by Ezra’s side and lets him go about his business, though she doesn’t feel good about it. Hopefully they won’t one day be subjecting two kids to Blair’s cooking wrath either.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She looks down at Ezra, still fast asleep. The doctor said they were nowhere near identical, and she’s growing an inclination to believe it. In Tanis’ words they look like two oversized baked potatoes, as she so kindly keeps reminding them all, but she can see the differences. Besides Matteo’s slight one-up in the weight department and Ezra’s head containing just about two times the hair of his brother, they have obvious differences that she’s pretty sure only she sees. Blair stares at them enough to notice, but he mostly just looks confused.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>To be honest, she still is as well. Everything from that day boiled down to an awful haze, but the one defining moment had been the words </span>
  <em>
    <span>we’re not done yet, there’s another one</span>
  </em>
  <span>. At her reaction everyone in the room had looked perplexed. How had she not known?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Certainly someone had figured it out. It was too suspicious of a situation not to. That’s why they had left in such a hurry, after Blair, poor dazed and confused Blair, had basically bullied the afternoon desk clerk to sign her out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Somehow, despite the shock of it all, they’re managing just fine. Sure they had to send out and get doubles of just about everything without hardly a moment’s notice, but they’re both breathing and relatively happy and they look at her already like they can truly see her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not so much right now, though. Ezra is clearly sleeping the day away and Matteo is halfway there once again by the time Blair returns, apparently deciding his shoulder is comfortable enough to nap on.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You didn’t burn the place down,” she observes, watching him put a bowl full of something down on the coffee table. There’s no telling what it is from this angle, or if it’s even edible, but that’s a victory.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s Tanis’ job,” he reminds her, sitting back down on the couch. Matteo blinks in her direction and then closes his eyes, seemingly for good this time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s strange how they’ve done this. They don’t have it down, and their lives could still be fucked, but they’ve just about survived their first week, and they did it with two of them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Have you sat back yet and realized we have two kids?” she asks him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sure it’ll hit one day,” he drawls, leaning back into the couch. He lays Matteo to rest in the valley between his tucked up legs, who doesn’t even twitch at the motion.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“When?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“In like two years, when they’re both running around screaming.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Two years. That seems so far away, even more-so when she thinks about the fact that there’s no guarantee they even have a month, a week, two days. For all anyone in this house knows their time runs out and they die tonight, Ezra and Matteo among them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She didn’t mean to bring kids into this, but they weren’t left with much of a choice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Blair always talks as if they have forever, at least aloud, and always to her. Right now he’s not even looking her way, sitting back easily with Matteo’s fingers curled around only one of his own. It’s incredible how small he looks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?” Blair asks. It’s becoming clear that she stares too much.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nothing,” she says, and kisses his cheek before she leans away to retrieve the bowl, almost forgotten about. It at least </span>
  <em>
    <span>appears </span>
  </em>
  <span>edible. “Thank-you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“For the food?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“For everything.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Whatever Blair believes, if he thinks they could die tonight too, he’ll never say that to her. Not when they have this quiet moment of stupidly domesticated peace and a long, odd future ahead of them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If he won’t say it, then neither will she.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For now, she’ll just live in this moment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wake up, jackass,” Casper orders. “Your phone keeps going off.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Vance had been ignoring his repeated attempts at rousing him. Key word there being </span>
  <em>
    <span>had</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was increasingly difficult now that Casper was actually there to get directly into his bubble, an annoyingly present force that was impossible to ignore once he got as close as he wanted without caring. Besides, how could he? Casper was so excited to actually be here that ruining it would sting just a little too much to ignore.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m going to end you,” he mumbles, trying to shake off some of the sleep clinging about. His phone is vibrating on the bedside table and he pulls at it until it comes loose from the charger, dragging it closer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s Aubrey,” Casper informs him, ignoring the pointless threat. Of course it’s Aubrey. No one ever actually calls him these days besides her. Farren only texts him, and that’s about it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?” he answers tiredly, rolling back into his blankets. Casper reaches over from wherever he’s chosen to stand now and pulls them back off. Being haunted, as it turns out, is not the most pleasant thing in the world.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Have you seen the news?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s,” he starts, fumbling for the clock. “Just past one in the morning. Why would I have seen the news?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just go look.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How about you just tell me what’s on the news and we go from there?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The whole town’s fucked,” she says. “Well, not all of it. Part of the downtown area is on fire, they said someone set it deliberately, and it’s still spreading.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He rolls out of bed, eyes still blurry with sleep, and heads upstairs with Casper on his heels. Vance ignores the television entirely and goes all the way up the second set of stairs until he finds the window at the landing, dark except for a sliver of moonlight. There’s nothing to properly see here from this distance, but there’s a garish orange glow to the sky that doesn’t grow dark until high, high above anything else. It would take one hell of a fire for the effects to visible from this far out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you safe?” he asks. “Pax is with you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, we’re good. The news said the wind is taking it the other way, but…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But what?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It can’t be just the wind if someone set it deliberately. Do you think it could be…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” he repeats. Aubrey has already gotten to the point he had just arrived at. One group of </span>
  <em>
    <span>things </span>
  </em>
  <span>killed the council in the summer - how likely is it that these same things are behind this, too? They’ve always wanted the ultimate destruction of this place; it seems like a good start to begin burning things left and right.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There’s a lot of people missing, Vance,” she says. Unless it refers to the case of him, missing most often means dead. If they’re setting fire to the place, there’s no avoiding it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you need me to come get you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Would you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course I would,” he insists. He hasn’t seen her, or any of them, since he himself went missing in the first place, and only they know he’s alive. Even his parents still most likely wonder to this day what could have possibly went wrong.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think we’re okay,” Aubrey decides. “They’re not evacuating this area, or anything. We’re just going to stay here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Right there,” he repeats. “You don’t leave unless something officially tells you to. And if you can’t get out, you call me. I’ll be there.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I will. Is it best that I don’t know what’s going on?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Definitely.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So you do?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sighs. “I wish.” The truth is, he has about as much clue as Aubrey does. Things have been ending for a while now, but only in this current time does it seem like it’s almost about to happen. He stares out the window at the glow in the sky - it’s only a matter of time, now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s a part of him that’s too tired for this, that just wants to sleep and not have to worry about anything for a while.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He won’t get that luxury anytime soon, he doesn’t think.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Aubrey, I have to go,” he tells her. “I’ll call you in the morning if you don’t get to me first.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay. Be safe.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He nods. Doesn’t say it back, because it’s obvious. She won’t go running into danger when she has no defense against it. It’s her fear for him and what he could do, what he is, that makes her say it at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Casper leans around him, closer to the window. “The apartment’s right outside downtown.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know,” he says, eyeing Dimara’s abandoned keys downstairs, left alone on the coffee table. It’s the middle of the night. No one would ever know.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Casper joins him, noticing the same thing. “We going?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Might as well.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This house is going to be overfull soon enough.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It already is,” he mutters. Overfull, and that's the way it should be. So long as there's a remotely correct number corresponding to the proper amount that belongs in here, then Vance can breathe easy and go to sleep every night knowing that things will be the same in the morning. Two more people won't change that save for shrinking everyone's space just a smidgen more.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Besides, it appears generally that space is shrinking anyway. If half of the greater downtown area is first, then more will follow. Soon there may not be much space left for anyone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There may not be any space left period.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He'll do what he can, </span>
  <em>
    <span>while </span>
  </em>
  <span>he still can. And if he can take the car and get Farren and Declan, then that's good enough.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It's just that simple.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey,” Dimara says when she opens the door. Kali smiles at her. “Rough night?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Only slightly.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s not surprised to see her. The more alarming face behind her is Zion’s, who she hasn’t seen in how long, really? Since she met him in the first place? It’s not like they haven’t talked, but now? Him apparently attending her very, overly depressing funeral doesn’t count.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Past them, too, Dimara can see Early sitting in the backseat, peering out the front window. When Dimara catches her eyes, she gives her the finger.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At least that’s typical.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her texts to Kali these days seem more and more impractical, straying further from comfortable, relatable conversation and more into veins that always revolve around the world as they know it ending. Not the greatest thing for a relationship, turns out, but they’re managing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Today it was the fire, and the parts of the city that have since been evacuated, and the death toll. It’s well into the hundreds. People sleeping, tucked away in their beds, fire alarms accidentally left dead. It’s only going up from here, and Dimara senses that it’s going to be their trend for days to come. People will keep dying, whether it’s from fire or something else. It was always going to happen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At least now they know it is.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Long time no see,” she says, leaning in to kiss Kali’s cheek. “You good?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Great,” Zion answers. “My apartment burned down last night.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sounds awfully… cheerful about that. Definitely not in the least pit perturbed, like the fire was only doing it’s job and he certainly can’t blame it, can he, not for existing. Of course he can’t.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How did you even—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t ask,” Zion interrupts, as if sensing her next question. There are a whole multitude of ways that could have gone, but she was going to start with how he even got her. Kali has permission of sorts to get through the barrier, but the offer doesn’t extend to others that tag along. Zion and Early shouldn’t be here.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neither should Farren and Declan, though, and they’re sleeping downstairs in Vance’s room while he sleeps in Kelsea’s.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s just all sorts of fucked up, is what they’re saying.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She steps aside to let them both in, stares at Early for a moment, and then closes the door when she gets the finger again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nobody can figure out who started it,” Kali tells her. “And nobody ever pinpointed who got the council, either, which means…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We know exactly who did it,” she finishes. “Right. Fuck me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She sits down on the couch with a thump. It’s good to know, it always is, but on the flip side it means they have the weight of it on their shoulders. No one important will believe them, not enough to protect the general, innocent population. They’ll be slaughtered like cattle and no one will be any the wiser.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Except for them. Dimara isn’t particularly inclined to have the deaths of thousands on her conscious.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m going to talk to my family,” Kali says. “They’ll have some pull with the government if they try hard enough, and if you really think we should be getting as many people away from here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She does. Dimara has thought that exact thing for a long while, now, but it seems more important than ever. Random civilians have nothing to do with this, have no role besides that of collateral damage. That’s what they’ll be if they stay.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Even if they put out a mandatory evac, some people will stay,” Zion points out. “If you think we should go, then we go. But not everyone will.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then we tell them the truth.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What truth?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s going to happen to them if they stay. They’ll be fighting something they have no chance of beating. They’ll die. We won’t be able to stop that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why are you talking like you’re planning on staying, if that’s the case?” Kali asks. “You’re not…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She trails off. Dimara chooses, wisely, not to look at her and instead stares at the floor. For someone so pleasant to look at Kali’s stare can be one hell of a thing to face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re not,” Kali repeats.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What if I have to?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No one </span>
  <em>
    <span>has </span>
  </em>
  <span>to, Dimara,” she snaps. “You just said it yourself, anyone who stays will die. You can’t push your luck with that twice.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If we all go, then there’s nothing to stop him. He keeps on going, him and everything he controls. People will keep dying. He’ll come after </span>
  <em>
    <span>us </span>
  </em>
  <span>because of the fight we put up. It’s better that we stay and deal with it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Deal with him, you mean,” Zion says. “And do you have a plan for that?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not exactly. Not even close to one, really, but she has to pretend otherwise. No one will agree to this if she doesn’t act like she has even a single clue. That’s her job.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She has ideas, ideas that could mean nothing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But they could also mean everything.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can take me to Shirin,” Kali offers. “I’ll do it, and I’m staying too if you are.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re not.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can’t tell me what to do.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re still human,” Dimara says. “Nothing you can do will be worth anything against him, as much as that pains me to admit. I know it, and you do too.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It pains her more than she can even admit aloud. It hurts, somewhere in her chest, right where her heart ought to be beating but isn’t anymore. No part of Dimara wants to let her go, not if it’s possibly permanent. She doesn’t want to die for good, not alone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But she might have to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So you stay,” Kali says slowly. “The nine of you, or… whoever wants to go or whoever else wants to stay, and then what? You stop him, or you—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Die trying,” she says quietly. Die trying just like Beckett did and leave the task to someone equally unequipped for it. “You need to go, and your family needs to do whatever work they can. Tell them the truth, if you have to. Everyone deserves to know it anyway. And if you’re serious, we’ll meet you at the house later. But that doesn’t mean you’re staying.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kali stares at her. Dimara finally gains enough courage to actually look her in the eyes, because she needs to. Kali might be going, soon. Dimara may never get her back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She needs to look while she still can.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Eight?” Kali asks. Nothing else.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dimara nods. Kali does too, swallowing thickly, and then leaves the house. Zion lingers for a moment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oeshe won’t go,” he says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oeshe owes me one,” she replies. “She’ll go if I tell her to. What about you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I won’t be fighting anything anytime soon. I’m better at watching. Protecting.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So you’ll watch her for me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Kali doesn’t take to being watched,” he reminds her. “But I’ll try.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She nods. She knows that very well. “Thanks,” she murmurs. At least she can live, possibly the last little bit she has, knowing that Kali is somewhere out there, safe. Dying might be worth it so long as she has that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zion leaves, too. A minute later the car pulls back down the drive and disappears.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s raining again, faintly. She can’t see it, but she can hear it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She can only hope that for now, the fires have been put out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s nearing eight.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Blair has zero desire to ever go near that house ever again, especially with two babies in tow. His two, no less. The further away he could keep them from that place, the better.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He feels obligated, though, if only for Dimara’s sake. The only reason they ever stepped foot on that property in the first place was because of him; seeing it through now, on Kali’s end, only seems logical.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Him going, though, means Nadir will as well, and that means the babies. It’s a proper family trip.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Blair’s not moving until someone comes to get him, though. It’s easy to rest - he has two small, breathing excuses for getting all the rest he could possibly want. Besides, he’s the one between the two adults in this room that needs less sleep, and he has no trouble staying up to deal with whatever various baby-related problems they could possibly encounter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nadir’s been napping for a while now, a while that’s making it turn into more of an actual, full sleep. He’s not going to wake her, either, until absolutely necessary.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Soon enough, though, he hears approaching footsteps, allowing himself to lounge for the last few moments of peace he’s going to get. Not one of the other three people in this room stirs when Tanis opens the door and pokes her head in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Five minutes,” she says. “You ready?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Will be.” He sits up, stretching out his legs, and then rolls until his feet are on the floor, out of the unfortunate comfort of the bed. Hiding away in bed seemed stereotypical, for sure, but it was also the thing that seemed the best.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You look tired.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“As everyone keeps reminding me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think everyone is,” she comments. “It just seems that way. Me too.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Lots of shit going on. Babies, the end of the world… you know, just average, every-day stuff and the like.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tanis nods. She watches him collect things in silence, his jacket and then the first one he finds of Nadir’s and a spare pair of shoes. There’s still the issue of the babies, but he’ll have to worry about them in a second.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You don’t think it could be anything else?” Tanis asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What do you mean?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess it doesn’t matter.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He struggles to pull his shoes on in the dark, realizes belatedly that he’s trying to shove his right one into the left sole, and sighs. “It matters if you’re bringing it up, no?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s just with all of this shit going on, you know the fires and all that, and we all seem…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Weaker,” she tries, testing the word out. “That may not be it. Drained, I would say.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He </span>
  <em>
    <span>does </span>
  </em>
  <span>feel drained, but that’s to be expected. How is he supposed to feel with all of this going on, when he hasn’t slept or done anything outside of exist and babysit for the past however many days. He hardly even has a concept of time anymore.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tanis looks worried, though, chewing at the inside of her cheek. He can hear it across the room, and it’s getting to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Luckily for Nadir she’s slept through the conversation, though she’s not usually this deep of a sleeper.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Drained,” he echoes. Him and Nadir, sure, but Tanis is clearly feeling it too, and if she’s this worried to voice it then the others must be displaying similar qualities. That’s the level of shit she notices, the details that no one else would pay any mind to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know,” she murmurs. “I guess we’ll find out.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And we have to go,” he reminds her. “Will you take one of them for me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She looks terrified for all of two seconds before she realizes that she’s making the face right at him, obviously so, and then masks it. He settles on Matteo and deposits him into Tanis’ waiting arms - she’s already terribly freaked out by the size of them and the mere thought of dropping them, so hopefully the larger of the two will ease her mind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He scoops Ezra up into his arms, and then reaches over the bed to worry at Nadir’s shoulder, who stirs and then presumably mumbles something filthy at him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re not usually wrong, you know?” he says. Tanis looks up at him. “If that’s what you think—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It is.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We might want to look into that, then.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“In all of our spare time?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’ll figure it out,” he mutters. The point of their time, or lack thereof, is sort of unavoidable. “We always do.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Somehow, in the past, they have. They’ve always come out the other side, sometimes unscathed and sometimes not. They </span>
  <em>
    <span>fix </span>
  </em>
  <span>it though. They always do.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Blair just has to believe that’s still true. Not for himself, not for anyone, really, in particular.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He just needs a future. And he’s going to make sure they all get it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They’re still not even close to Portland proper this far out, but the smell of ash is stronger.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Celia knows fuckall about the wind and the direction it blows, but it must have come this way all throughout last night if she can smell it. It gives the house of horrors yet another charming, homey quality that anyone else would just die to have.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Literally or figuratively.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She stays outside while everyone files inside, having collected Kali and all, and does a head count. Eight, and then nine. Two babies total. She can only thank the heavens that Farren and Declan chose to stay at the house and that Casper, for once, has fucked off and let them be. Fourteen heads to count is too much even on a good day.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She hasn’t been alone in a while, is all. Isi lingers about and stares at her, somehow looking very menacing and also annoying merry all at the same time, and then disappears.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Once she’s gone, Celia lets the phone ring.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She had to steal Anya’s number out of Rory’s phone. It was never something important for her to have personally, not until now. Even in this moment she’s not sure she cares about anything that isn’t in the immediate area, but still…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rory will care. Rory will especially care if they stay here and die because they’re none the wiser to what’s going on.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And if Rory’s too cowardly to put into words why they need to go, then she can do it for him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That’s her job.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It takes two tries to get ahold of Anya, possibly the awkwardly late timing or the unfamiliar number, she’s not sure. When she answers immediately on the second try Celia is unsure of what to say for a long moment, to the point that she’s certain Anya almost hangs up for good.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s Celia,” she says first.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why do you know?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Rory gave me your number.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Of course he did, bless his heart. Half the time she’s sure she wouldn’t talk to anyone if she wasn’t goaded on by him first, and this is sort of one of those times.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you need me for something, now’s not really a good time,” Anya informs her, flatly. “Way too many people dying for me to be able to save anyone specifically.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No one needs saving,” she says. No one important, anyway, not to her. “I do need you to do something, but not for me. For yourself.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then what?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They’ve put out an evacuation order for parts of the city. I’m sure you’ve seen it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Our goal is a full one. City-wide. And I’d appreciate if you listened to it, and if you’d take Tavian with you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s a pause. “Why?” Anya asks finally. Celia gnaws on her already bloody, raw lip, turning into a circle in order to give herself time. Trying to explain it all would be pointless, and would serve no purpose beyond unintentionally convincing Anya to stay. That’s never been the endgame she has in mind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She stares at the house and the trees and the distant skyline in silence and Anya lets her. A bird settles at its perch at the top of the house, dark as night, and looks right at her. Even from a distance it looks like it knows all of the answers and wants to tell her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She wishes it was that simple.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You said it yourself,” she starts. “There’s not enough saving in the universe. Nothing you or Tavian could possibly do will work against what’s going to come.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And what you can do will?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not sure. I’m never sure. But that’s the hope.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And you want us to go? Why?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because I don’t want you to die.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Rory</span>
  </em>
  <span> wouldn’t want me to die,” Anya says convincingly, like she knows it to be true more than anything else. It is, and Celia knows it too. “So is this him talking, or you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Both of us,” she admits. “You saved his life, once. Ideally I’d like to save yours in return.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And what if I don’t need saving?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She does. They all do. Celia wouldn’t admit that even about </span>
  <em>
    <span>herself </span>
  </em>
  <span>unless the situation was well and truly desperate, but that’s what it’s come to. Anya is just as proud as she is in that regard, by the sounds of it. Running is more difficult than anything else.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Celia takes a deep breath. “Will you consider it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I will. When is it happening?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Soon. If you go, will you let him know? Or me, in the very least?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll let him know,” Anya promises. “Thanks for the warning.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It doesn't necessarily sound grateful, but people like Anya rarely do, and Celia only knows that because they’re terribly similar, more than she’d ever like to admit. There’s a reason Rory’s latched onto them both.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anya’s hung up on the other end before she’s even had time to realize, no doubt cursing Celia’s existence or the whole planet, whichever is easier. Both, in some respect, probably deserve it. She definitely does.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As long as it’s worth it, though, she doesn’t care in the slightest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So,” Isi says thoughtfully. “Is it </span>
  <em>
    <span>normal?</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nadir gives her a look, a look she’s pretty sure everyone else gives her, and pulls Ezra even further into her shoulder. He’s already pretty firmly nestled in there. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>He </span>
  </em>
  <span>is lovely, thank you very much for asking.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That reminds me, I was right!” Isi crows. “Told you so. But why are there two of them?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve asked myself that question every-day,” Blair mutters, but gives Isi a positively filthy glare when she turns even slightly in his and Matteo’s direction, as if switching targets will help her at all. It really won’t, and it’s not even worth the effort.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Camden’s face has gone more sour by the moment, with every passing second that he switches between the two of them. Two babies is considerably worse than one, at least to him. Double trouble, and all that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s the first time in the past few days that Nadir’s almost come close to hysterically laughing, and it’s all because of the look on his face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>To his utmost credit, Shirin looks disinterested, or at least he’s trying to. Really, it looks like his curiosity is fighting to get the best of him and he’s holding it back for… no one’s sake, really. They all know what he’s like by now. He’s the reason they’re here, after all. Now that Kali has officially decided to go through with the whole </span>
  <em>
    <span>being immortal </span>
  </em>
  <span>business he’s their number one man. He’s their only man, really.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He takes Kali and Dimara off, and a minute later Parker scuttles from the basement and hurries them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nadir’s curious, but even she’s not </span>
  <em>
    <span>that </span>
  </em>
  <span>curious.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Isi leans in close. Too close. “Can I have one of them?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” she says flatly. Just about every single person left in the room gets at least vaguely defensive save for Camden, who practically recoils in disgust. As if Isi kidnapping a child is the worst of his problems these days.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Blair makes a face. “I don’t even want to know why you want one.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Blood sacrifice,” Vance mutters under his breath. Isi either ignores him or it’s the truth, so Nadir isn’t quite sure what to believe on that front.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She can hear something going on in the other room, vaguely, but nothing too alarming, and neither Blair nor Vance have shown any sign that’s something has gone terribly wrong. Even Camden looks unperturbed, as much as he can when faced with two children he never wanted within a hundred yards of him. It was funny when Blair threatened to unleash the possibility of one on him, just over a week ago. The image of two, again, is almost enough to make her hysterical. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s just something about this house.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you positive?” Isi asks. She’s still too close for Nadir’s liking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“One hundred percent.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Isi lifts a single finger up, stretching it forward. “If you even touch him,” she starts. “I’ll turn you to ash.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, please, Camden threatens me with that every other day,” Isi scoffs. “That brings up a good point, though. When do you think they’ll starting spitting fire? Do you think they will?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She hasn’t allowed herself to think that far. Camden’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>hopefully never</span>
  </em>
  <span>, muttered under his breath, does not go unnoticed by everyone. While Blair has been thinking about a faraway future in a time where everything is good once again, Nadir hasn’t even thought about them growing up. She can’t imagine their faces, what they’ll look like. Who they’ll be.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They could be like her, or they could be like Blair. They could be like both; something the world has never seen the likes of, something nobody is prepared for.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They’re hers, though, and that’s frankly all that matters. It’s strange how fast the instincts have come in. Nadir knows what the possibilities are, and finds she doesn’t care. They’re hers, and that’s all that matter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And if Blair gets his way, they’re going to grow up and live long, happy lives.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I hope they do,” Isi says. “It’s that or one day they’re going to try and rip your throat out.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’d like to see them try,” Camden says. That image hadn’t come to mind yet, two bloodthirsty little creatures trying to end the life of one Camden Kershaw, but it would be in character. Like father like son, and all that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’ll keep saying it so long as people keep trying to understand - they’ll still be hers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Isi leans in again, and Nadir turns if only to resist the final urge to just clock her once and for all. Rooke eases up behind her and holds out his arms, clearly waiting for a reception, so she does just that and places Ezra into them. It’s an easy blockade, and it puts a body between him and Isi. So what that it’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>her </span>
  </em>
  <span>body. She really will turn Isi to ash, no problem.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ezra hardly blinks at the transfer. It’s odd, all these little things she’s noticed. Blair’s got him now, but Matteo seems to cling to her more often, craving and savoring the warmth like most babies seemingly do. Ezra has never cared, not with Blair and not with Rooke, about the cold. He takes whatever he gets and closes in on it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Right now he looks at her as if he sees right through her and then his head returns to Rooke’s shoulder. It must help that Rooke holds him the same way she imagines he held his little sister, once upon a time. Close and tight and almost unwilling to let go.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s enough to make her think that Blair’s hope isn’t misplaced. That they’ll have that future.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They’ll just have to see. It’s coming sooner than they thought, after all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sooner than anyone still knows.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It takes longer than it did for them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Vance doesn’t know about any of the bullshit, magic rules that lead to immortality or drag you away from it. They sacrificed pieces of themselves to bring Dimara back and got forever as an add-on; Kali is looking for it willingly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Giving up your soul, or a piece of it, isn’t just nothing. He’d do it again, to bring Dimara back. But Kali’s doing it to stay with them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Or at least to stay with her. Vance knows the truth of it all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Most of it, anyway. Not with Camden involved, who’s currently staring at him. He does that a lot. In Vance’s current position, tucked up on the floor closest to the front door, he doesn’t have much of an option in running unless he tumbles out and down the front stairs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In reality he just wanted to be as close to fresh air as possible without actually leaving. He can just smell the ash, faintly. It hasn’t gotten any stronger.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That’s all he wanted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Everyone is far, far down the hall, or in another room entirely. Camden approaches and sits down against the opposite wall, a foot away from him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Vance waits, and he doesn’t have to wait long.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are they bugging you too?” Camden asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Who?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The kids.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why would they?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Camden snorts. “You’ve really managed to circumnavigate the whole </span>
  <em>
    <span>natural born enemies </span>
  </em>
  <span>thing haven’t you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m surprised you even know how to use the word </span>
  <em>
    <span>circumnavigate </span>
  </em>
  <span>in a sentence,” he says, instead of properly addressing the comment. The more time he spends around him, the more it seems like Camden isn’t worth the time of day no matter what time it actually is.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“God, he’s really rubbed off on you,” Camden says, clearly irritated. The topic of conversation always seems to rotate back to Blair, somehow. “Those kids are half him, you know. They could grow up and hate you just based on principle.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You don’t have to be enemies with someone just because history says you do.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, but you have a right to be enemies with something that has the power to kill you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You and him aren’t natural born enemies,” Vance points out. “Vampires and whatever the fuck you are don’t happen to be written down in stone, and yet you are anyway.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You don’t know what the fuck I am.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t,” he agrees.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So you have no idea,” Camden says. “He should be enemies with </span>
  <em>
    <span>anything </span>
  </em>
  <span>that can kill him as quickly as I could. One second, and he burns to the ground.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So why haven’t you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You say you can kill him, and you hate him enough to do it, so why not?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Camden has a response for everything, or at least he did until Vance says that. He wasn’t expecting those words of everything he’s said previously to make him go quiet. Camden seems like a different person entirely with no voice, wrong and unfamiliar.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Vance has learned in all these months. He can hear Camden’s heartbeat, uneven and too fast. That’s nerves or fear or anxiety - something bad. It never points to anything good.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He knows the feeling too well to think it could possibly be anything good.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The more prone you are to advertising what you are, what you can do, the worse it gets,” Camden says eventually. “I’m surprised you haven’t learned that by now.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So you’ll threaten him in private but once the stakes are real it goes away?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re lucky I don’t pop your head off,” Camden says. Vance knows he could. If he’s capable of killing Blair, then Vance would be merely an appetizer, no real obstacle. “How much has he actually told you about me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just that you had a pack of sorts, once upon a time. That it’s mostly gone now.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’s right. Almost entirely gone. Because we advertised ourselves, because we forgot who our enemies were, and we got </span>
  <em>
    <span>slaughtered</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Hunters don’t truly care if you’re doing damage at the end of the day. They just care about what you are. Having one in your midst won’t save you from it if that’s what fate has coming for you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hunters are one thing—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Enemies </span>
  </em>
  <span>are one thing,” Camden reiterates. “As long as you know who they are, it doesn’t matter what they can do.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Does that apply to everything, then? They know Clearson’s out there, plotting, but if they know all of that then does he have any real power over them? He can set fire to things, he can kill, but at the end of the day… what does that really mean?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Camden stands up, abruptly so. Vance stays on the floor if only because there’s nowhere else to go, and Camden stepping over his legs for the door gives him even fewer options than before. He’s running, like it seems he does a lot, or at least escaping the situation for the time being. Nothing he can say will change his mind, because Camden has made it up. One thing he</span>
  <em>
    <span> has</span>
  </em>
  <span> learned, despite Camden thinking he’s absorbed nothing at all, is that trying only extends so far. You have to work at it, spend time on it, and even then it may not be good enough.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Camden is no exception to the rule. He </span>
  <em>
    <span>is </span>
  </em>
  <span>the rule.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Vance smells ash again when Camden opens the door, a tad stronger than before. He can nearly see it in the air, miniscule particles floating on the breeze even all the way out here.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He can see something else, too, a flicker at the treeline. Another just beyond the shadow of their car.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Camden opened the door not because he was running, but because he recognized it while Vance was distracted, lost in his own head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Perhaps he’s not as predictable as they all thought he was.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What the hell?” Camden asks, just as confused. The shadows are almost unrecognizable save for that familiar glow, red on black, slow blinks that make the eerie light disappear for only a second before it’s back again, renewed and stronger than ever.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He knows exactly what it is. Not what’s coming. He never knows what’s coming.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In this, knowing your enemy does nothing at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he still does nothing, knows nothing, when the explosion goes off.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Everything around Dimara is obliterated in a split second.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s dark and then light, as she finally rights herself in the aftermath and then she sees the fire. The room they had been in on the outskirts of the house is half-gone, the outer wall shattered and strewn across the grass. She can see clear outside.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Almost, anyway. There’s dust stinging her eyes, a shrill ringing in her ears. The smoke and the cloud from whatever just caved in half the house is making is near impossible to distinguish anything at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s no one in sight. Kali was right by her side and Shirin was just in front of them, back to the outer window. Parker had been lurking behind them all, watching curiously, when Shirin said </span>
  <em>
    <span>that should do it</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and then—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then something really bad had happened.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She rolls over onto her stomach and blood trickles across her ear from her head, from hitting the ground. There’s still no Kali, no Shirin, but there’s Parker. On the ground, bleeding, the chunk of wood protruding from his chest nearly blocked from view by Rooke leaning over him. He’s still alive.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She can’t imagine he’ll be that way for much longer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Rooke,” she tries, knowing she must be shouting but barely unable to hear himself. He hardly flinches; he glances at her, and then back to Parker’s gasping body, struggling to breathe when his lungs have been torn to shreds.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s nothing left of where Shirin was except for blood, blood and the collapsed wall behind where he had been standing, shattered glass stained with red.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She gets to her feet and wraps one hand under Rooke’s arm, dragging him up after her. His hands fall away from Parker’s shoulder, and by the time she lifts him back to his feet Parker is gone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looks terribly small in the ruin of what’s left of the room, like the spear of wood that killed him is twice his size.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s screaming from outside, so shrill that she can hear it. She has awful memories of what that noise belongs to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come on,” she urges, and foregoes what’s left of the house and drags Rooke onto the grass, directly through the obliterated side of the house. There are worse noises too, the crackling of the fire as it catches the ancient house like kindling, guttural noises like animals in the distance, or maybe right next to her. She wouldn’t know the difference.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her phone is going off too, screen shattered, half hanging free from her pocket. She can’t see what’s flashing but it can’t be anything good. It’s never anything good when it looks like that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The car,” she says. “Go back to the car. You have your knife. Get back to the house if you need to.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” he starts in a rush. His eyes are watering. She won’t pretend it’s from the dust alone. “No, not after last time—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Last time, when she told him to go and then she up and died. She knew the words were coming, she senses, before even he did.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Go,” she insists, finally, and plants a hand against his shoulder to shove him back to the road. He obeys, if only because he looks so bewildered that he doesn’t know what else to do.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Before she picks her way back into the house she sees him flick the knife open, before he disappears.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It has to be good enough.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She clambers back up onto what’s left of the floor, avoiding the blood congealed in the corner where Shirin was and stepping carefully over Parker’s body on unsteady feet. Everyone else was in here when it happened, out in the halls or in other rooms. The seven of them, and Kali, and the babies, and Camden and Isi have to be somewhere around too, unless they bailed…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Somehow, some way, people have made it outside. She can still hear it towards the front of the house.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The whole house it unsteady, the main hall shaking as she steps into it. The front door is off its hinges and everyone is gone save for the thing blocking her from getting out into the front yard.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It looks like what they described the one in the woods as, skin warped and half burnt, eyes red like embers, nowhere even close to human or an attempt at charading as one. It moves like the crackling fire, feet leaving stains in the wood as it takes a step closer to her. An attempt at words comes out more like a hiss but she can already imagine her own knife buried in its chest, dead before it has even a chance. One of these things isn’t getting her again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Someone else beats her to it, though. She sees the shadow, thinks something along the lines of who must be looking after her, and then Kali’s knife finds its throat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She has no mind to pay attention to the creature, demon, whatever it is, just Kali standing there whole and alive, bleeding similarly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But alive.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fuck me,” she manages. Kali rushes forward and wraps Dimara in her arms, squeezing tight. “Please tell me everyone else is alive.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Everyone else besides Parker, clearly, and whatever the hell happened to Shirin. If he’s dead or alive, obliterated or not, she has no idea.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’re good,” Kali says. “Sort of. There were half a dozen of them, at least, but they’ve got the last two cornered. I just came to look for you. I saw Rooke - where is—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Parker’s dead. Shirin’s just… gone. I don’t know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gone, and he said whatever he did to Kali was done, but they have no idea if it was the truth or if he was actually done with the job before they lost him, permanently or not. Now they may not have the option at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Something’s happening,” she continues, unsure. “My phone—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I got it too,” Kali confirms. “Something’s happening in the city. I didn’t have time to get into the details, but it looks bad.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Worse than this?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s really ending,” she says weakly. Kali nods. She had accepted it, but that doesn’t mean she was ready for it. They’ve been targeted this whole time, followed and stalked. For all she knows she sealed their fate, and this ending, the second she stepped foot into the house and met Rooke.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They could have never known, but it feels an awful lot like they caused this. All these people dead, all this destruction…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If they caused this, if it’s on </span>
  <em>
    <span>her,</span>
  </em>
  <span> then she has to finish it too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I would stop squirming if I was you,” Blair informs the absolute menace of a thing trapped on the ground between him and Vance. “You’re making it so much worse than it has to be.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The demon laughs at him as if this whole situation is funny.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>To it, the situation probably is.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They accomplished whatever they had hoped to, if what that was exactly was just being a general nuisance and adding a few people to their overall stunningly high body count. Unfortunately, of all people, they couldn’t have taken Camden into consideration for that one.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Everyone important, he thinks, is alive. That’s all that matters.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At this point he’s just waiting for Kali to come back with the knife, because Vance lost his somewhere in the grass and Blair very well can’t break the things neck. He’d like to, but that wouldn’t solve anyone’s problems.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The others are dealing with the remaining one up against the side of the house, though it appears it got to Rory at some point and made his hands bleed everywhere. That must be why Celia looks two seconds from going to town.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He can’t blame her, on that front.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kali returns towing Dimara and passes him the knife, wordlessly. There’s no exchange passed from the thing on the ground, either - it looks up at him, opens it’s stupid mouth, and he draws the knife across his throat too deep, unnecessarily.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then it’s dead. The other one up against the house before that is already gone by the time he removes the knife.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fuck’s sake,” Vance mutters, getting back to his feet. Blair allows himself a brief moment to glance around first, taking stock, or inventory. Both the grass and the house and the immediate trees are still burning, but everyone appears to be okay. Rooke is staring at him through the car’s back window, Matteo clutched in both arms. He had thought nothing about handing him over and letting Rooke go, and then he had pulled Tanis after him and passed off Ezra, though she hadn’t been happy with it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So everyone’s okay, it appears. Like he said, everyone that matters.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We gotta go, now,” Dimara says, brandishing her knife in one hand and a phone in the other. “Evacuation order is out. Whole city needs to go. Everyone, car, now!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He expects everyone to listen, so it’s an utter relief that they do. A few of them peel off for Kali’s car, sensibly. Dimara will go with her too. He won’t mind driving for once if it means they can get the living fuck out of here.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You a part of the club now?” he asks, leaving the body at his feet. Kali looks up, almost nervously.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hopefully.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What do you mean, hopefully?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shirin’s gone. Hopefully he just went with Camden and Isi.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, they fucking took off as soon as things went south and he definitely wasn’t with them,” Blair informs. “Why? You never found him?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s one word for it,” Dimara mutters, almost under her breath. She shoves Vance at him, and then Blair in the shoulder, with a clear path in mind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They’re leaving. Right.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He finds himself behind the wheel as predicted and Vance climbs in beside him. Nadir gets in and rightfully retrieves Ezra from Tanis outstretched, eager arms, as if the thought of holding him any longer in the middle of such chaos. Rooke has yet to move a muscle, though - he’s staring past Blair and all the way into the road, as if imagining somewhere very far away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Blair turns the key in the ignition, puts his eyes forward, and understands why.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s someone in the road, all the way down at the vacated dead end. Their form is miniscule, shaded by the trees, almost lost in the brush that’s crept over the side of the road and into the cemented cracks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>From a distance, it could be anyone. It wouldn’t make sense for that to be the case, not here, but it could be. That’s how theoreticals work.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They all feel it, though. Blair had been drained, per Tanis’ earlier words. They all had. He had been delusional enough to believe that maybe, of all people, Tanis could be wrong when she never was.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looks at Charles Clearson from a hundred yards off, easily, and knows she was right.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He could collapse, if he was standing up. If he was in the road the feeling would be enough to put him to his knees almost instantly. It’s like one point of contact, one look, and the feeling in his bones from the past few days is intensified a thousand times over. He hears everyone’s heartbeats quicken, an entirely fear-based response, and then slow again as the drainage hits. As their energy, their life, depletes as they sit here.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fuck,” Tanis says weakly. It sounds a lot like </span>
  <em>
    <span>I didn’t want to be right</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No one did, even if they didn’t yet know it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’s not doing anything,” Vance says quietly. No one’s questioned it aloud yet; perhaps it’s all forming together quicker than he could have given them credit for. “Why is he not—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Go,” Nadir orders. “Jesus Christ, just fucking go.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s no telling if anyone in the car has noticed. Rooke only did because he had little else to focus on besides Matteo safely in his arms, asleep despite the hellish commotion. He has yet to look away, because he’s not feeling it. Looking isn’t doing anything to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Blair pulls the car around too fast to be considered proper and veers off into the grass, two unsteady hands wrapped around the steering wheel. When he looks back, all the way at the next and only corner, Charles Clearson has not moved an inch from his position. He’s almost small enough to disappear.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s not doing anything because he already technically has. He’s killing them from the inside out. Whether it happens directly or not, it seems he cares very little. It’s as if the power of God has been put into his hands; he kills them, seemingly the number one option, or he gets rid of them. Them leaving with the rest of the city will be as much of a victory as any other.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s trying to get rid of them, one way or another, but the jokes on him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Blair has long since been tired of running.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Celia would gladly stay in the bathroom, if someone would let her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s easy, initially, because Rory and Rooke are the only other two in here with her, and they’re both silent. Not an unusual trait for either of them, per say, but there’s something more hollow to it now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She did her part. She made Rooke wash the blood off his hands, Parker’s blood, and then cleaned Rory’s hands out likewise and bandaged them up, between his fingers. She doesn’t even know what the thing did to him, but it got there before she did. It wouldn’t have cut him up if she had.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’d stay, but she won’t be able to for much longer. Dimara has already appeared in the doorway to watch, although no one’s doing anything any longer. The others aren’t far behind her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So, are we leaving?” Celia asks. She already knows the answer, and Dimara says nothing. No one does, in fact. Both the bathroom and the hall are stunningly quiet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She looks at Rory. He shakes his head, eyes cast towards the ground.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That answers that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Riddle me this,” she continues. “We can’t leave, but chances are if we stay he’s going to kill us. Even if he can’t apparently he’s already draining the life out of us anyway - he’ll weaken us to the point where he can’t fight back, and then he’ll take off. If he’s going to destroy this place that’s not his idea of a finale. Once he’s through with us, he moves on.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t have all of the answers,” Dimara tells her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know that. I’m not expecting you to, either. But if we’re staying, we need an idea of what we’re doing, before he figures one out himself.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You guys should go,” Rooke says quietly. “I’m the reason this all started, why he’s still here. It’s my thing to deal with.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And you’re the reason we’re not,” Rory responds, instantly. He’s slid only his pinky finger over, draped over Celia’s across the lip of the counter, but done no more.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s comforting regardless.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Celia really, genuinely does not want to die, and she doesn’t want to watch anyone else meet that fate, either. Watching Dimara go was bad enough. She won’t be able to handle it seven times over, and knowing her shit luck, she’d be the last to go. Clearson would make her watch it, and then leave Rooke with the aftermath.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We have until mid-afternoon, tops, until everyone is gone,” Dimara says. Until it’s just the nine of them, presumably. Celia doesn’t know what happens to everyone else left out of that equation and isn’t sure she wants to, anyway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s too much to imagine, and Celia is too tired to do so.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If anyone’s got any ideas, let me know,” Celia says. “Because I’ve got fuck-all.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I still think there’s the big picture here,” Rooke says. “He’s literal death. How do you kill that?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You don’t.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So what do we do instead?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Keep him here,” Tanis interrupts quietly. “Keep him here until we come up with something. There has to be something.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And how do you plan on keeping him here?” Celia asks. “Are you going to ask him nicely?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rory reaches over to squeeze her hand. This time it doesn’t help nearly as much. Oh, how she wishes her problems could be fixed by him alone. She would truly never have any.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have an idea,” Tanis says. “I… I think it could work, but I’m not sure I could do it in this state. Not alone, anyway. Maybe if I wasn’t this weak, but something of this scale, alone? There’s no way in hell.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What are we talking?” Dimara asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Keeping him here,” Tanis repeats. “No one gets to or from this house unless I say they do, or at least that was how it worked, before he started messing with me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But you’re not talking just the house,” Blair insists. “You’re talking…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The whole town. Locking him in here with us until we figure something out.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s a few different mutters at that, all hidden under deep sighs or exhausted breaths. Celia understands it all as much as the next person, but what are their alternatives, really? She can’t see any, and she can’t imagine anyone else does.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You just said you couldn’t handle it alone, though,” Dimara says. “Not that it’s surprising, but Jesus Christ, Tanis, even at one hundred percent who knows if you could hold something of that size for God only knows how long. We’re talking days, weeks, fucking </span>
  <em>
    <span>months.</span>
  </em>
  <span> We have no idea.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So I need help.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And who could help you, exactly?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Celia can hardly see her, not with the crowd that’s formed the door, but she sees Tanis turn, just enough to know that she’s done with the muddled conversation in the bathroom and is headed towards bigger, better things.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tanis looks at Kelsea. “Well, I’ve got one idea.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you think it could work?” Blair asks her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think Tanis is smarter than anyone’s ever given her credit for,” Nadir responds. “But this isn’t riding on her.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At this point, it’s down to something out of their control. If Kelsea knew what she was doing, sure, but that’s still only two people to hold up a shield with a fifty mile radius, and Tanis said it herself. They’re not in the state to do it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There are others, though. People in the woods who know how to do it and who have held it for centuries. People who just chased Kelsea </span>
  <em>
    <span>out</span>
  </em>
  <span> of said woods.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That’s what they’re relying on, now, the words and actions of people who want nothing to do with them, not even of someone who once belonged to them. She wishes it was something else. Even it was on her, that would be better. At least then she would know.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>All she does know, a stunningly simple fact, is that she can’t look away from Ezra and Matteo.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She knows what this is leading to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s always known.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Blair knows it, too, but he won’t say it outloud. For that she doesn’t blame him at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They’ve been what most people would consider perfect children, quiet and unbothered, ultimately content with everything got. For all the exhaustion it put her through, all the doubts she had in her mind, she finds they’ve been erased now. There are different ones in their place now, worse ones. It always can get worse.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you think that’s why they’ve been sleeping so much?” she asks quietly. “If he’s doing something to them, too…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s just how babies work.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because we have lots of experience, right?” she laughs, but it’s weak at best. “What if he’s doing the same thing to us that he is to them? What if he’s killing them too?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey,” Blair says, crouching down in front of her. “Take it easy. Us, we’re one thing, but they’re different. He’s never even seen them.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But he just </span>
  <em>
    <span>did</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” she reminds him. “He knows now.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Listen to me. He’ll be stepping over my cold, dead body before he gets anywhere close to them.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s what I’m afraid of.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t be.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have to be,” she insists. “You know that that’s not going to happen, because you know what we have to do. Don’t you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He nods, silent. They both do - that’s the difficult part. It’s what the two of them have been avoiding talking about, but they’re officially out of time. By the end of tomorrow, today now, everyone else will be gone from this town. If Tanis has her way, they’ll be locked in here.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You heard what Dimara said,” she continues. “She’s right. It could be months. Fuck, it could be years. We don’t know what it’s going to take, or if we’re even going to survive.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nadir really has gotten a hold of at least some motherly instincts, enough of them to know that she can’t subject them to that, too. They don’t deserve that, to be born and then immediately suffer over and over again because their parents and the people around them were too selfish to let them go. They have to let them go.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s not just an option - it’s the </span>
  <em>
    <span>only </span>
  </em>
  <span>option.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It would be too easy to breakdown, to let everything happen around her, waiting for others to fix her problems. But this is on her, and Blair. While everyone else must make decisions that affect what’s left of their home and their little world, she’s deciding fates.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She never wanted to be the person to do that. She’s not meant to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Blair stands up. He’s tense, coiled like he’s in the middle of a fight and ready for the next punch. There’s a difference between bracing for something and knowing it’s coming; a small one, but it’s there. He knows what’s going to happen and there’s little to do in preparing for it. It’s going to hurt either way.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He takes a deep breath. “I’ll go talk to Kali.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What if she won’t? What are our other options?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Really, who else? Zion, who she knows nothing of beyond the brief glimpses she’s gotten of him. Shirin, who’s probably conveniently dead, or Camden and Isi, who have probably taken off. There’s no trust anywhere in that, therefore it doesn’t work.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn’t know Farren, either, not like Vance does. She may never, if this all goes south. At the end of the day their options end there, and they point towards unchartered territory.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s Kali or nothing, and she knows Blair likes that about as much as he likes any of their other few, far-between options.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Seriously,” she says. “What if she won’t take them?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Could Nadir fault her for that, for refusing a job that’s likely too big for her, something she never wanted or asked for? A hunter, possibly immortal now if Shirin’s word is true, hiding herself and her life from one of the closest knit families in the world. She’d have more to hide if they tasked her on this. Almost too much.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Blair pauses at the door. If the world was anywhere near right one of them would be able to go and the other would stay, but she won’t leave him alone and him her, either.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Which means they let something else go instead. For their own good.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For the future they were supposed to have.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She will,” Blair says, though he doesn’t sound convinced. No one has, recently. “She will.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He closes the door behind him, leaving her with two sleeping babies, twins who might just get to grow up. Twins who might have a life to live in the future.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But who knows if she will, anymore.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This is a bad idea,” Casper informs him, helpful as ever.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He started off in Vance’s head when they got into the woods, and then seemingly accidentally materialized behind him and instantly tripped over the nearest tree root.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kelsea hadn’t even laughed, though she usually would, so it was serious.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And maybe Casper was right. It certainly seemed like a bad idea.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Vance didn’t need to hear that, though. They just needed to go out, get something accomplished, and then return home just in time for the sun to rise. Just in time for everyone to leave them, if they really got the job done out here.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was more Kelsea’s job than this, though. In reality Vance had nothing to do with it. Going with her wasn’t a good idea, but neither was letting her go alone. Not after what happened last time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At least this time it’s not Rory. Vance could change and outrun any member of the colony by a mile; Kelsea won’t have to worry, if they come after him. And considering Casper is only here roughly sixty percent of the time anyway, they don’t have much to worry about. That will only come if the colony refuses to help them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kelsea thinks they will if they know the alternative, which isn’t much of an alternative at all, but he’s not so sure. They willingly chased her out last time and likely would have killed her and Rory both had they been just a hair slower, if not participating in dragging her back and imprisoning her in the first home she ever had.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What are you thinking?” he asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m just going to wait outside,” she answers. “I think that would be best. They’ll know we’re here, so hopefully someone will come out to talk.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That sounds like a mighty fine idea to him, as he wasn’t inclined to let her go in there alone and him following along would likely, in as few words as possible, cause the colony to go absolutely apeshit. He’s reminded that she told him, all the way back when they first met, that no one else would have helped him. They would have put him out of his misery without asking what he wanted first.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he </span>
  <em>
    <span>wanted </span>
  </em>
  <span>to live. He still wants to. To be honest, he likes these people less than most, just based off of what he’s heard and seen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alright, we can stop here,” Kelsea says. The majority of the earth is muddy and disorganized, like too many footsteps have been tromping through it as of late. It wasn’t that long ago that they got chased out, but it can’t be from that alone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn’t like that he can’t see anything, no signs of any life. He can </span>
  <em>
    <span>hear </span>
  </em>
  <span>things, but they’re indistinct and muddled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kelsea sits down on a felled tree, silent, and Casper soon follows suit, although is entire lay down in the grass could ultimately be deemed unnecessary. He’s not about to tell him what to do; it doesn’t work, as he’s quickly found out. He could relax himself, but he feels too on-edge, unease running through him stronger than anything else. There’s nothing to see, nothing to pinpoint.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It doesn’t take nearly as long as he would have expected. He hears it, first, but Kelsea stands up a moment later to meet the person stepping from the middle of the woods, unseen until that moment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He knows instantly, if only because of how alike they look. Not that Kelsea talks about her siblings all that much, but he’s gotten the most of it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s no other alternative.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fletcher?” Kelsea asks, voice small. She’s seemed so much bigger than herself lately that he instantly detests the change in her voice, all because of the appearance of her brother.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And his eyes, it turns out, are not for her at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you remember what happened last time you brought someone else this close?” Fletcher asks, staring daggers at the two of them. Okay then.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Casper snorts from the ground. “Good luck catching either of us, buddy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That doesn’t make it much better. Kelsea and Fletcher are having a staring competition, it seems, which is odd because he’s at least three quarters of a foot taller but she could also drop a tree on him out of nowhere.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It doesn’t make any sense.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Make them go,” Fletcher says. “If you want—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I just want to talk. I need help.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They told you needed help, and you ran. Why do you want it now?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s not about me. Will you just hear me out?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you make them leave.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” Vance refuses. He has a whole lot of things queued up, worse things, but Kelsea turns and gives him a pleading look. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Earshot, </span>
  </em>
  <span>she mouths at him. Within earshot for him is a lot farther than most people. Far enough away that Fletcher will likely think he’s gone, but he’ll be able to hear their conversation and if something, anything, happens.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He reaches down and grabs Casper’s arm. “Come on,” he mutters, pulling him to his feet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Casper doesn’t seem too keen on moving, but he follows Vance away from the clearing if only because he’s quite literally being dragged and doesn’t have much of a choice otherwise.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Vance ventures as far as he dares, until Kelsea and Fletcher’s conversation is nothing more than hushed murmurs. He definitely can’t see them from this distance. Casper looks around, clearly for another spot suitable to sit down in again, but eventually decides against it in the thick undergrowth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you think she’ll convince him?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s not him that presents the problem. Even if she convinces him he’ll have to talk to everyone else.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, running would beat dying, I’ll tell you that,” Casper informs him. “It’s going to suck once everyone’s gone.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know you’re going to be gone too, right?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What? Nice one. What point is there to me leaving? It’s not like he can kill me. And </span>
  <em>
    <span>someone </span>
  </em>
  <span>has to watch your dumbass considering you actively try to get yourself killed like three times a week, minimum.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t try to.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“God forbid you ever try, then. It’ll be happening every day.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Vance sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. Not that he expected him to, but Casper isn’t taking this seriously. It would be unlike him to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There’s no point to you staying, either,” he says finally.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I just said—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know what you said, but it’s not your job. I’ll have everyone else with me. Farren and Declan are only going to have each other out there. You should go with them.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you going to make me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“As it’s been established, I </span>
  <em>
    <span>can’t</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” he reminds him. “But I think you should. Even if he can’t kill you we don’t know that he can’t get rid of you some way. They don’t deserve to lose you twice.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And </span>
  <em>
    <span>you </span>
  </em>
  <span>don’t deserve to die. Do you even want to stay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then why are you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For a multitude of reasons, really. They all involve him living, though, and who knows how likely that outcome is. It doesn’t seem to be the one they’re all looking towards right now, especially with how exhausted he is.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Vance sits down in the dirt, ignoring all of the undergrowth and shrubbery poking into him. He thinks er, and one person’s agreeance doesn’t transfer to a whole colony.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Casper stares down at him. “If they put the shield up, and I’m on one side and you’re on the other, do you think you’ll still be able to hear me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He shrugs. He doesn’t even want to think that far ahead, when that far is really only half a day away. Hours is what it boils down to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At least Kelsea is making progress. It sounds, distantly at least, like Fletcher is agreeing to try.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Really, that’s all he can do.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He waits for something, a signal to get back up and go to her, but she beats him to the punch by a long mile. She comes skipping from the trees and latches onto his back, squeezing him tight.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They’re going to leave.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are they?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s what Fletcher said. They’d much rather run and settle down elsewhere than stay here and die, in any circumstance.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And what about the shield?” he asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kelsea looks more uncertain, there. “All he can do is try. He gets where I’m coming from. If Tanis holds it from the inside and the elders do it from the outside that should be more than enough to keep him in, Fletcher said. And even if he tries to get out, they should be able to hold in from the outside.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That’s good then, isn’t it? In every sense of the word, at least for the one that involves him surviving. He’s willingly let himself be stuck in a place with someone that’s already trying to kill him, and as Casper’s already proven, he doesn’t want to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s never been about what he </span>
  <em>
    <span>wants</span>
  </em>
  <span>, though; Vance’s wants and whims and desires have mattered very little in this.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That’s why they’re doing this. Once he’s gone, they can live a life that’s actually worth it, one that’s good and happy and ultimately free.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That’s the point of all of this.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And if he dies trying, well…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At least he can say he had something good before it all, too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dimara has an ideal life in her head and is getting none of it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What she thought back when her grandmother was three days dead, she has little idea. None, in fact. It must have been something perfectly average, a mundane life alone in her apartment. She was going to sell the mysterious properly owned up in the Cape and attempt to move on with her life.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was that same property that stood between them and nothing. While everyone else vacated this is where they would remain, the nine of them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>While the others had finished packing up, ready to head out, she hadn’t been able to tear her gaze away from the television for long. Whatever poor soul that had been chosen to broadcast the focus of the evacuation had finally been set free, and now it was strictly being shown from the air - a helicopter, or something, if they were even allowing people to stay there for that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>By the looks of it, the place was just about empty. There were only a few stragglers on the roads headed towards the last checkpoint the police have set up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Which means this is all ending.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’re all good to go,” Kali says from the doorway. It’s been open for some time now as people come and go, as car doors open as shut.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As people say goodbye.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Oeshe’s been waiting impatiently for some time now, apparently raring to go and get the hell out. At least she didn’t put up too much of a fight about it. Zion already took Early and left, so that’s two less people to worry about.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She can see it, slightly, through the window. Farren’s hugging Vance and Casper is incessantly bugging him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s almost like nothing has changed, but everything has.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even Bagel, on the floor behind her, looks perturbed about this whole mess, like he knows they’re making him leave, too. At least he’ll be in good hands.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Dimara,” Kali says, softer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know, I know,” she answers, swallowing. “Just give me a second.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They don’t really have a second, though. The moment Clearson realizes they’re trying to pull something he’s going to try and take off, so they need to do it as quickly as they possibly can.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tanis is already packed up in the car with them, along with Nadir and Blair. They’re dropping the three of them at the checkpoint to hopefully put the shield up and then they should be on their way.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s a lot of hope to be holding onto. Dimara is just eternally, selfishly grateful that she doesn’t have to watch them say their final goodbyes to the twins.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kali steps forward when she doesn't move, though her second of time has long since passed. Her arms find Dimara’s waist, curled around her until she can feel Kali’s lips against the back of her shoulder, silent.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This sucks,” she says plainly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know if I can go out there with you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s said everything she’s had to, except for this one. The hardest one.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You don’t have to.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dimara always feels like she has to do everything, is the issue. Not that it’s a bad thing, per say, but it’s constant. She doesn’t know what it’s like to exist without that feeling.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just stay here,” Kali murmurs. “Just stay here and remember all of the good things. And then go out there and kick his ass.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She laughs, a lump caught in her throat. Her eyes are already wet. “Got it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kali turns her around, but she doesn’t catch a glimpse of her face to tell what she must be thinking beyond the nervous sound in her voice. Kali hugs her, tight, and she realizes belatedly that this is even worse than she thought it was going to be.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>How is she going to let go?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You got this, hey?” Kali says weakly. “I know you do.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m going to miss you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Love you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Love you, too,” Kali replies. “It won’t be long, okay? I’ll see you again soon.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She nods, even though the truth of the sentence might not be that at all. Neither her nor Kali know that it will be soon, or if it will be ever again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just be safe out there,” she pleads.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You don’t have to worry about me,” Kali reminds her. “You focus on what you need to do. I’ll be fine. We’ll all be fine. And we’ll be waiting for you on the other side when this is all over.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For whatever reason she’s holding it in now, Dimara knows it’s only going to be made worse later, once Kali is gone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because she will be.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I love you,” Kali says again, leaning into kiss her. It’s so painfully soft that it’s almost enough to make her start crying on the spot. Almost, but not quite. Dimara isn’t even sure anymore that the energy needed for a proper breakdown is even stored inside her weakening body.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kali lets go. Dimara wants nothing more than for her to do the opposite, for her to hold on and never let go. Dimara reaches for her hand at the last possible second, holding on until they’re stretched too far apart.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Until she has to let go as well, when Kali’s hand falls away from hers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then she’s gone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s never wanted to do anything less in his life.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Blair is usually pretty gung-ho about most things. Give him a thing to do, a time and a place, he’ll be there. He’ll do it, no questions asked. So long as he has a relatively positive chance of surviving, nothing else matters much.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s why this is such a striking difference than anything that could be considered normal. If the percentage was at one hundred on a typical day, their chances of survival for this were what, maybe forty? Even forty seemed too generous.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s delayed getting out of the car long enough. Oeshe parked the car half a block out from the last checkpoint out of the city and is now just waiting, staring at him expectantly. Him and Nadir both. Even the dog is looking at him, though at least the dog is clueless.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Oeshe, however, is staring at them both an awful lot considering she doesn’t even know them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tanis is already outside, standing at the side of the road and waiting just the same. There’s been no sign of any other human in a fifty mile radius, save for the last two remaining officers he can sense at the checkpoint over the next hill.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s just them left.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kali turns around and looks right at him. “I’ve got them,” she says, similar words that she spoke in the middle of the night, when his conversation with her and Dimara both had started to turn ugly, until it had felt like he was about to cry and then Dimara had nearly started as well, probably because of the look on his face. He was beyond desperate at that point; if he had to die, it was one thing, but them? What had two week old babies, </span>
  <em>
    <span>his two</span>
  </em>
  <span>, ever done to deserve this?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She has them - Blair knows this, and believes this. It doesn’t mean he wants to leave them any more.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They could go grow up out there, far away, not alone but almost, in another sense.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll never get out if I don’t now,” Nadir says, weakly. He watches her lean across both of them, press firm kisses to both of their foreheads, but neither of them stir. They’ll be none the wiser to any of this.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She lingers, but not for very long. She’s crying before she even gets out of the car and Tanis is on her before she even shuts the door behind her, squeezing her tight.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s just Blair that’s expected to get out, then.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He swallows several times over, until he’s worked off the worst of the hysterical urges to cry and then follows suit, allowing himself to linger even less.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank-you,” he says. Kali nods, and the smile that accompanies it is small, awfully sad.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It makes everything worse.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn’t make it very far once he gets out of the car and slams the door shut, choosing instead to find a good spot in the road. Once chosen he crouches down, head in his hands, and tries to ignore the sound of the car restarting before it shoots off down the road, towards the checkpoint and beyond.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ultimately very, very far away from him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He knows it’s Tanis that eventually nudges him, squeezing his shoulder. He can still hear Nadir crying, and it’s too far off to be her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just do it, if you can,” he manages. “At least that way I know it wasn’t entirely for fucking nothing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She does step away from him, squeezing his shoulder again before she does. He won’t know anything’s happening until it does, so he doesn’t bother to look. A moment later Nadir crouches down beside him, though she’s facing the opposite way. Apparently she’s more interested in seeing immediate results.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She also pries one of his hands from his face to lace her fingers through his own, exposing his already stinging eyes to the bitter wind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The silence is the most terrible thing he’s ever heard. It feels like even though it’s just the people that have gone, everything else has chosen to leave with them. It’s only the wind whistling by, colder than normal.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is it actually working?” Nadir asks a minute later. Tanis doesn’t respond, so he glances over his shoulder, and finds that he can actually </span>
  <em>
    <span>see </span>
  </em>
  <span>it, a similar shimmer slowly rising into the sky, higher and higher until it towers above them and then continues on, disappearing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It must be. Whatever Kelsea said to her brother, whatever he passed on, it clearly piqued someone’s interests. Tanis couldn’t do it alone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>All of a sudden, it goes even quieter. The sound of the outside world being absent is jarring, like he’s woken up with no idea where he is or what exists around him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It really is just them, like he said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tanis takes a step back, and then two, neck craning back to follow the shield all the way up into the sky. Her hands, when she lowers them, are shaking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It looks like it could go on forever.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Blair stands, pulling Nadir with him. He curls his free hand around Tanis’ arm.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you sure you’re going to be able to do this?” he asks. With how bad she’s shaking, weak tremors running up her arm, he’s surprised it happened at all. “If you can’t—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can,” she says confidently, her voice more sure than her body is. “I have help.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn’t just mean the colony; they’re included in that, too. Blair doesn’t feel like very much help right now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>All he can do, as lackluster as it is, is turn around. “Let’s go home, then.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It doesn't feel much like home, now. He’s got a new definition for it. They all know that, though, and say nothing. Tanis takes the silent offer he’s put forth and clambers onto his back, holding on tight with both shaking arms.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s got them, and the long, bitter walk home. Even if it doesn’t seem like it now, that doesn’t matter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s all they’ve got.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s just going to have to live with that. Or not.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Whatever happens, happens.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They have very little say in that now.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Only one fic left, now. That'll be going up in the next two weeks, sometime. We shall see. Until then.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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